


Forged Over Flying Bullets

by ssw_loved



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Episode Related, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-13
Updated: 2012-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-29 10:56:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssw_loved/pseuds/ssw_loved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a code that exists among the members of 5-0 from the very beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forged Over Flying Bullets

**Author's Note:**

> This is a character study I wrote while listening to Amanda Palmer's I Will Follow You Into the Dark. The song ended up having less to do with the story than I hoped it would, but their code - their unspoken code - is born from the lyrics "I Will Follow You Into the Dark". Regardless, I hope you enjoy this.

There is a code that exists among the members of 5-0 from the very beginning, a code that is stronger than any formal rules or guidelines or ‘protect your team members’ bullshit that any police squad can put into action. Their code never had to be put into place with such breakable things as words. It was forged a long time ago, maybe on that very first day (maybe the second) over beers and promises and calls to the governor. It was forged over flying bullets that sometimes knick skin.

They never spoke it but it was always solidified and maybe that’s why it hurts so very badly when it doesn’t stick, when it no longer seems to apply to her. Oh, she knows that’s absolutely the most stupid thing she’s ever thought. She’s driving them away on purpose, of course she is! And she’s doing it because of their code, because of that non-spoken thing that exists between the four of them since the beginning.

She’s doing this to protect them, but she never expected to have to protect them so very little.

Because this wasn’t how it was supposed to be, was it? Not in her mind, not after she saw the words across the screen of the TV and knew Chin would know, and Steve and Danny too, and Jenna now that she was a part of their team as well (her replacement, some cruel little part of her mind whispers, and it has the voice of years ago. It has the voice of the monster that spoke to her the first time she saw someone else surf in her place.)

She’d thought she’d really have to do it, really have to protect them. She’d prepared herself to throw them off her porch, to show them a side of herself she hadn’t seen since her surfing accident. She’d been prepared to be cruel, to make none of them want to come near her until it was safe again, until she could be sure they could all walk away from this whole.

But it didn’t happen like that. She never needed to do that, not with anyone but Chin.

Steve never came. That was alright, that was okay for a little while. She didn’t expect him to be the first to show up, anyway. She expected that to be Danno, pounding on her door, angry, livid, but at the same time trying to comfort her and she knew she’d have to let him storm around her kitchen for awhile. She’d let him do that, to have his say. She’d let him do it and just when he got angry enough, just when she was sure he’d got it all out, she’d tell him to leave. Cold. Cruel. The way she had to be if she wanted them to be able to stay out of this.

That’s when she expected they’d send Steve in. Steve, the one who didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve but sometimes wore it in his eyes. Steve, who’d show up with a surfboard and ask her if she wanted to talk about it. Steve, who if this had been real, she’d maybe have let pull her into a hug and allowed herself to cry on his shoulder, just for a moment, because she could do that with him now. He was one of those people, in her inner circle.

Steve never shows. Kono figures that’s alright as well. They’re busy with a case. They have to be. That’s the excuse; they’ll show up on the weekend, they usually have at least one day off.

But they don’t. They don’t show up, the man she used to call boss and the one he’s so obviously in love with. They don’t show their faces, not once.

But Chin does.

And she doesn’t know how to do this, doesn’t know how to handle it. Because they’ve been through this before, him and her, and she was hoping one of the others would get to her first. One of the others, so they’d go back and tell Chin she was being cruel and it was obviously a byproduct of how depressed she was. They’d tell him how she asked them to tell him not to come around for awhile, and then she wouldn’t have to see his face, because it’s the one that’s going to kill her and she’s known it from the beginning.

Because Chin – he’s a good person. He’s the best, always has been, from the time when she was little to now. They’ve got each other’s backs, always, and that’s not a code that’s gone unspoken. Family.

But now that family is showing up on her door and she’s going to have to break his heart, because he’s been waiting there for her all night and she can see it in his eyes. He already knows she’s going to hurt him.

And so she does it. Closes off her heart and tries to pretend that it’s Danny or it’s Steve because maybe the hurt would be easier on their faces. Oh, it doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t work, because he’s Chin! It’s never going to work, she’s lying to herself, and she gets a little bit too close – steps just an inch too far into his personal space because she does want his arms around her telling her it’s going to be alright.

But she can’t do that. It’ll compromise everything.

So she pushes past him, cruel words slipping past her tongue. She forces him away just like she’d have forced the others away, had they remembered she was even a part of her team.

(It hurts even more that Steve had told her not a few weeks ago that it would be alright- and that she’d honestly believed in those words, believed they wouldn’t stop fighting for her like she wouldn’t stop fighting for Steve all those months even when she hadn’t had a badge, but they’ve dropped her. They’ve got bigger fish to fry. They’ve got Jenna now.)

They’ve forgotten that stupid, unspoken code that Kono thinks was maybe a figment of her imagination.

This bitterness was supposed to be fake. She was supposed to live like this, under a fake attitude, tossing cruel words but relying on them all the same, because they weren’t supposed to give up trying, because that’s what they do. That’s what she was supposed to fall back on, the knowledge that they cared even though she didn’t want them to.

But they don’t.

And so she can’t.

And the bitterness isn’t faked anymore. It lives under her skin and it eats her alive and she throws herself in too deep because she can’t rely on them anymore. Her words to Chin really are angry and cold because they’re not directed at him, not really. They’re directed at a stupid promise, a stupid code.

They’re directed at an illusion.


End file.
